Sepinwall on TV: 'John Adams' review

In the new HBO miniseries "John Adams," history comes alive -- then frequently pauses to nap.

The mini has an impeccable cast, led by Paul Giamatti as Adams and Laura Linney as his wife, Abigail. It's based on beloved source material, the Pulitzer Prize-winning David McCulloch book that everybody seemed to have tucked under their arms for much of 2002. (How many people actually read it, as opposed to showing it off, is an open question.) But too much of the finished product feels like required homework.

McCullough's goal, in part, was to shine a light on one of the less-revered founding fathers -- to show that Adams was more than just the guy who ran the country in between Washington and Jefferson. More often than not, though -- particularly in the first four chapters (out of seven) that HBO sent out for review -- the miniseries seems to be implying that maybe this man's life isn't worth a big-budget, six-week, seven-part epic.

We start off with Adams witnessing the aftermath of the Boston Massacre and choosing to defend the British soldiers accused of murder. His triumph of the rule of law over mob mentality impresses his fellow Bostonians enough to get him sucked into the Patriot movement. Part Two (also airing tonight) deals with the First Continental Congress and perhaps the finest moment of Adams' political career: convincing the fractious coalition of 13 colonies/states to vote for independence without dissent. Part Three chronicles his time in France during the Revolutionary War, Part Four the build-up to him becoming America's first vice-president, Parts Five and Six Adams' presidency, and Part Seven his final years.

And there are some very good things in there, notably Giamatti's lead performance. Whenever I told friends that Giamatti was playing Adams, they would laugh and quote a line from one of his more modern roles, usually "Private Parts" ("WNBC!") or "Sideways" (the one about his hatred of merlot), but he's a perfect fit here. As Adams says of himself while explaining to Jefferson (Stephen Dillane) why Jefferson should be the one to pen the Declaration of Independence, "I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular -- and you are very much otherwise." It's like Adams is summing up not only his own reputation, but that of every sweaty, bug-eyed, resentful character Giamatti's ever played. This Adams is a reservoir of barely pent-up rage -- he's a disaster as an ambassador to the French because he can't stop speaking his mind, as loudly and bluntly as possible -- and Giamatti excels in those moments when he's exploding on someone in defense of his new countrymen.

Still, in spite of those explosions, or the fist-pumping musical score by Rob Lane and Joseph Vitarelli, "John Adams" often feels like the "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" of American Revolution stories. Adams is central to some parts of the story, but more often is hanging on the periphery, as characters describe pivotal events that he had nothing to do with.

We see virtually none of the war itself, because Adams would spend the bulk of it failing to fit in with French high society, in what's the extended low point of the episodes I've seen.

On the one hand, the entire point of the France story is that Adams was a miserable failure, and undermined at every point by fellow ambassador Benjamin Franklin (a very hammy Tom Wilkinson), but devoting an episode to the snooty French aristocrats looking on Adams like he was a shaved ape is overkill. (The episodes vary in length, by the way. Tonight's two chapters combine for nearly 90 minutes, while other installments clock in at just a shade over an hour.) And the fourth episode has an uncomfortably long sequence where Adams shows Abigail the various rooms of the enormous French castle they'll reside in during his second ambassadorship. (McCullough's book was also fascinated with the wealth and goods that Adams acquired during his time in Europe.)

Even the episodes where Adams is more central to the action are a slog. Tonight's story of the Continental Congress and the campaign for independence introduces so many characters -- so quickly and with minimal introduction -- that I spent half the episode consulting the extensive HBO press notes (and, when that failed, Wikipedia). When I wasn't being confused by who represented which colony and why they were for or against war, I was busy laughing at how virtually every line of Tom Wilkinson's dialogue was a famous Benjamin Franklin quote. (I kept waiting for Adams or someone else to say, "Gosh, Ben, that was terribly clever. You ought to write that down.")

There are moments when "John Adams" stirs up the passion its author clearly had for the subject -- Adams firing off a rifle in the middle of a battle at sea with a British warship, the first public reading of the Declaration, George Washington (David Morse, in the second-best piece of casting other than Giamatti) whispering his oath of office at his inauguration -- but too often it's just as muddy and dull as its subject was accused of being.